Donald J. Trump descended “Stair Force One” to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the President of the United States of America and his first overtly racist comment by implying that the country of Mexico is intentionally sending immigrants who are criminals and rapists.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Reality

Donald Trump described people from Mexico as having “lots of problems”, drug users, rapists, and criminals. By painting a large swath of people with a single brush as “dangerous” he is using baseless stereotyping in an attempt to prove that Hispanics are different in their social behavior.

You might try to make the case that immigrants are still committing crimes, even if they are at a lower rate of natural-born citizens, however that does not explain away the fact that Trump is singling out an individual ethnic group as the cause of the problems in America. That is why is statement is racist.

Immigrants generally have a stronger incentive than native-born Americans to stay out of legal trouble — especially undocumented immigrants, who risk deportation. And those who legally are in the United States (or are pursuing legal status) are required to pass a criminal background check.

“Immigrants in general — unauthorized immigrants in particular — are a self-selected group who generally come to the U.S. to work. And once they’re here, most of them want to keep their nose down and do their business, and they’re sensitive to the fact that they’re vulnerable,” said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

And the data backs up this theory.

Crime Rates

FALSE – According to the Congressional Research Service, incarcerated non-citizens represented 7.2% of the total incarcerated population of 2.4 million, a proportion similar to the noncitizen proportion of the foreign-born population. If illegal immigrants were bringing high crime then their should be a larger number of incarcerated illegal immigrants compared to the national population.

Mexicans Are Rapists

FALSE – Of all of the convictions of illegal immigrants in 2013 (the majority of whom were from Mexico) only 1.6% was sex offenses. Immigration offenses account for the largest portion of federal convictions of immigrants, followed by drugs, then traffic violations.

Crime Category

2013

Immigration

31.3%

Dangerous Drugs

15.4%

Traffic Violations

15.0%

Assault

10.2%

Burglary

2.8%

Weapon Offenses

2.7%

Larceny

2.7%

Fraud

2.6%

Sexual Assault

1.6%

Forgery

1.5%

Other

14.2%

Compare the 1.6% number to the national average of 12.2% of convicted prisoners who committed sexual offenses. So an illegal immigrant is 7.5x less likely to commit a sexual offense.

Describing how he would negotiate with the CEO of an American car company that wanted to relocate to or build a manufacturing plant in Mexico, Trump had an imagined conversation during his June 16 announcement.

“I would call up the head of Ford, who I know,” Trump said, going on to say that he would say, “Congratulations. That’s the good news. Let me give you the bad news. Every car and every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border, we’re going to charge you a 35-percent tax, and that tax is going to be paid simultaneously with the transaction, and that’s it.”

Reality

That would, as The Washington Post‘s initial fact check stated, seem to violate the North America Free Trade Agreement (a treaty that Trump has openly disdained). It also does not take into account the fact that only Congress could establish separate tax rates under the Constitution.

During his campaign announcement, Trump declared that the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners exchanged with the Taliban for Army Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl “are now back on the battlefield trying to kill us.”

“We get Bergdahl. We get a traitor. We get a no-good traitor, and they get the five people that they wanted for years, and those people are now back on the battlefield trying to kill us. That’s the negotiator we have,” Trump remarked.

Reality

In fact, U.S. officials had announced two weeks prior that Qatar, the country to which the Taliban leaders were sent, had agreed to maintain a year-long travel ban while officials in both countries continued to negotiate the details.

As far as the traitor remark, Bergdahl’s attorney warned Trump in August to cease spreading his “outrageous comments.” Bergdahl is accused of desertion, not of being a “traitor.”

Donal Trump questions Ted Cruz’s legitimacy for his candidacy for the Republican nomination in a phone call to Fox News.

“He was born in Canada. If you know and when we all studied our history lessons, you are supposed to be born in this country, so I just don’t know how the courts will rule on this.”

Reality

The Constitution says the candidate must be 35 years of age and a resident of the United States for 14 years. The third qualification: He or she must be a “natural born citizen.”

The Congressional Research Service, the agency tasked with providing authoritative research to all members of Congress, published a report after the 2008 election supporting the thinking that “natural born” citizenship means citizenship held “at birth.”

Donald Trump has sued Palm Beach County in Florida for $100 million and accused the county-run airport of deliberately sending air traffic over his historic mansion and private club.

Trump specifically called out the local airport director Bruce Pelly for diverting all departing flights over the Mar-a-Lago mansion, to seek revenge over a 20-year-old lawsuit.

“The county’s and Bruce Pelly’s efforts in this regard are both deliberate and malicious, and motivated by personal animosity towards Donald Trump,” reads the lawsuit, which was filed in Palm Beach County Court on Jan. 6.

The lawsuit says Pelly wants to get back at Trump for suing him in 1995 and blocking his plans to expand the airport.

“Pelly is seeking revenge by attacking Mar-a-Lago from the air,” according to the lawsuit.

Adding insult to injury, Trump is forced to fly his own private jet over his club, according to his lawyer, John Marion of Sellars, Marion & Bachi.

Lawyers for Palm Beach County, who represent Pelly, declined to comment.

Trump bought the Spanish-tiled oceanside mansion in 1985 and it is listed on the National Register of Historical Places. The lawsuit said that it was built in 1927, and therefore predates the existence of the airport, which was built in the 1930s. It also predates the introduction of jet aircraft in the 1950s.

Trump called the flights a “horrible injustice” and that, despite restoration, the vintage club is “particularly susceptible to the corrosive bombardment” from jet aircraft.

“The overflights of Mar-a-Lago have caused a direct and substantial invasion of the property by excessive, unreasonable, unwarranted and uninvited noise, vibrations, fumes, pollution and residue, which cause direct physical damage to Mar-a-Lago,” reads the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims the mansion is “by far and away the most important historical structure in Palm Beach and one of the most important in Florida and, indeed, the United States.”